“Here,” he murmured gruffly, brushing his fingers over a tiny place near the top of the map. Next to it, I saw the depiction of a mountain range. There were dozens of them, actually, that stretched all over the northlands. I’d never realized there were that many. “Next to the bog.”
Most wouldn’t enjoy living so close to a bog. During the warm season, the smell had been potent, the smell of decaying plant life and still water. Yet, thinking about that bog, I always felt comforted because I remembered my father. Walking with him there and making up songs and laughing because our voices echoed across the water.
My gaze fastened on that small place he touched. I memorized it. There was a circle drawn there with a horizontal slash just above it.
They’d always known where we were, I thought. For so long, since we’d never encountered a horde, I thought that maybe the Dakkari didn’t know we existed at all. That all changed whenhe’dcome to our gates, however.
I sucked in a small breath when another thought occurred to me, one that made the contents of my belly slosh.
“Were you…” I whispered before I cleared my throat. Steeling my voice, I asked, “Was it really you who came to our village? Or did you hear that story from another horde king and decide to use it?”
Was it another lie used against me? To soften me towards him?
Those red eyes flashed and he walked away from the map, approaching me. I wasn’t prepared to meet him head on this morning, not when my head was pounding and I was a moment away from spilling bile all over his boots.
“It was me,” he said.
And Ibelievedhim.
So he wasn’t lying about everything, I thought, not entirely certain how that made me feel.
“Does that disappoint you?” he rasped, tilting his head to regard me. “To know that it really was me?”
“Disappoint me? Why would it?” I asked, feeling a sharp spark of pain bloom in my head. I blew out a breath and turned away, going back to my little pallet of furs on the floor. “I don’t want to fight with you this morning.”
“When you were so full of fight last night?” he questioned, watching as I sank down and leaned my back against the pole I was chained to.
I had been uncharacteristically temperamental last night. I’d even been surprised at myself but I figured it was the stress and shock of the day…and my newfound reality as his prisoner. And the disappointment at knowing that he’d only been using me. That there had been a duality to his kindness.
“What do you plan to do with me?” I asked.
A part of me thought of faking my usual stutter, just to see how he’d react. Just to see if it would anger him like it had angered Benn. A part of me hated that, with him, I spoke clearly. A part of me hated that I didn’t knowwhy.
“How do you control the fog?” he asked, ignoring my question.
Because I didn’t see the point in lying, I told him, “I imagine a barrier, small at first, no bigger than my palm. And once it’s tangible to me, once Ifeelthe energy of it tingling in my hand, I expand it.”
“How long have you been able to control it?” he asked next, crouching in front of me, studying me with a rapt expression.
“Not long,” I murmured, swallowing. “Or maybe I’ve been able to do it all along. The ability came and went. I wasn’t really able to control it until…”
Him.
I pressed my lips together. My mouth was dry again but my muscles were weak and I didn’t feel like standing again to get water.
“Until me? In the fog?” he guessed.
I shrugged.
“You will demonstrate it for me,” he told me after a short pause. “Today.”
Today?I went dizzy at the thought. Not in my state.
“I can’t today,” I said. “I feel sick.”
He scowled. “I told you not to drink the wine.”
I met his eyes but didn’t say anything. What did he want me to do? Go back in time andnotdrink it? So that I would be well enough to perform for him today, his little human amusement?
